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Get Ready for Blackboard Ultra

Ultra good vibes

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ACC is Migrating to a NEW and IMPROVED Blackboard

What is happening?
We are upgrading from Blackboard Learn to Blackboard Ultra’s intuitive interface design, advanced features, and seamless integration, ensuring a more engaging and productive educational journey for faculty and students. 

Why is this being done?
To harness Blackboard’s next-generation LMS’s enhanced features and capabilities.  Blackboard Ultra offers a more intuitive and user-friendly interface than the current Blackboard Learn platform. By upgrading, we aim to streamline navigation, simplify course management, and enhance accessibility for both students and faculty.

Blackboard Ultra will provide the following new feature benefits:

  • Enhanced Instructional Design
  • Flexible grading
  • Enhanced communication and collaboration
  • Enhanced administrative controls
  • Intuitive user interface
  • Improved accessibility
  • Same user experience on mobile and tablet devices
  • Responsive design to provide a consistent experience across multiple devices
  • Consistent course view across all courses

Training & Resources

Link for asynchronous training is available now!  In-person/HyFlex training will be available soon.

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Timeline

View a timeline of the project

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Latest News

View the latest news of the project.

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FAQs

Link to a list of frequently asked questions.

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Timeline

Spring 2024: Planning

  • Change Management Plan
  • Biweekly meetings of LMS Transition Team (cross-sectional group of faculty and staff)
  • Development and refinement of in-house training

Summer 2024 – Spring 2025: Training and Conversion

  • Face-to-face/HyFlex training in Departments with opportunities for feedback
  • Asynchronous training available
  • Drop-in sessions for additional support
  • Course Build-Out Courses for faculty in Ultra
  • All of instruction remains in Learn

    Summer 2025: All instruction in Ultra moving forward

    Roadshow

    Open house-style roadshows took place on all ACC campuses from April 2 to May 10. No advanced sign-up was required.

    General topics included:

    • Background and context for upgrade, high-level timeline, and next steps including training options
    • Demonstration of Blackboard Ultra features
    • Q&A to follow

    Below is a link to the recording from our North Ridge campus, which best represents the information shared and includes a wide variety of questions asked.  To access the video, you will need to login with your ACCeID account.  Please contact the Help Desk or call (512) 223-4636 for more assistance.

    Northridge Campus roadshow video

    Training & Resources

    Get ready for a learning experience that’s as intuitive as your smartphone! 📱 We’re thrilled to announce the upgrade to Blackboard Ultra, designed to make the academic journey even smoother and more engaging. Get excited for a more intuitive, accessible, and engaging learning experience. Don’t wait until the last minute. Start making the move to Ultra by signing up for a training session today!

    1. Sign up for live workshops for Faculty & Staff (Face to Face & Virtual) 
    2. Learn to convert Original courses to Ultra with our self-paced course.
    Blackboard Ultra Image Self paced

    To access the self-paced course:

    • Log in to ACC’s Blackboard site,
    • Select “Institution Page”,
    • At the top, you will see a link to “our self-paced course”. Click the hyperlink to self-enroll in the course, and complete the brief survey to access course content.

    Latest News

    Visit here for latest news on Blackboard Ultra Upgrade

    This section holds communication from the Vice Chancellor of Instruction, the transition committee, and the Blackboard technical group. 

    Vice Chancellor's Message to Faculty: Blackboard Ultra - May 29, 2024

    Hello Faculty Colleagues,

     
    I hope that your summer is off to a great start, whether you’re in the classroom, teaching online, or taking a break from your teaching duties.  I know that many of you are already ultra excited about our upgrade from Blackboard Learn to Blackboard Ultra in the summer of 2025.  Ultra is a sophisticated and elegant interface that will help faculty ensure an optimum “virtual” classroom for their students.  Some of my favorite new features include the AI tools that can help faculty easily create quizzes with questions from various levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy or grading rubrics based on an assignment, and the fact that SAS accommodations for individual students can be done for all assessments and assignments at one time rather than clicking into each one.  Not to mention Ultra’s better wayfinding overall, and the ease-of-use that comes from being able to drag and drop when designing courses. 
     
    To get started on this upgrade, I am happy to report that your Ultra Build Out Sites (UBOS) will be available starting today, Wednesday 5/29.  An Ultra Build Out Site is the “sandbox” within which you can play with Ultra and build out your existing course(s) in the Ultra environment.  To access your UBOS, you can log in to Blackboard as normal and select ‘Ultra Build Out Courses’ from the drop-down menu under the Current Courses heading.  These UBOS are unique to each faculty member (whether teaching in credit, Continuing Education, or Adult Education) and represent courses taught since summer 2023 by modality and by part of term (teaching session).  Thank you to Seth Wilkerson and our partners in IT for creating these UBOS! 
     
    These sites are a place for you to develop (convert, build or update) your Ultra courses.  While we will not ‘flip the switch’ and use Blackboard Ultra until the Summer of 2025, these sites will allow for well-paced, quality course conversion/construction over the next academic year.  As a reminder, these sites have a shelf life and you will need to convert content from them into your live courses next summer and fall 2025.  There will be ample reminder messaging prior to these UBOS being purged.
     
    Need an additional UBO?  Please work with your department chair/dean to submit a request here.
    To support your work in these UBOS, there are/will be two training options: asynchronous modules you can review at your own pace as well as in-person/HyFlex sessions to be scheduled with your departments.  The in-person/Hyflex sessions will be scheduled at a later date, likely starting this Fall, but the asynchronous training modules are available now and can be found here This link can also be found on the Blackboard Ultra web page under ‘Training’.  I want to recognize the work of our Instructional Design team and Faculty Ambassadors who created these modules – many thanks and well done!  
     
    Have questions while exploring the asynchronous modules?  Please reach out to your Instructional Designer and/or email [email protected]
    We will continue to highlight the ways in which you can find resources during this upgrade, including support from fellow instructors who have just completed a train-the-trainer program with Blackboard.  Stay tuned for more on this front.  My thanks go especially to Dr. Beth Knight, Dr. Erasmus Addae, and Seth Wilkerson for their leadership in this ongoing and intentional transition to Blackboard Ultra for Summer 2025.  Once you see what Ultra can do, you will be ultra excited, just as we are!
     
    Dr. Gaye Lynn Scott, Vice Chancellor of Instruction
    Vice Chancellor's Message to Faculty: Blackboard Ultra - May 13, 2024

    Good morning, Instructional Colleagues,

    I want to send this update to you before you take a well-deserved break from your teaching duties.  As of late last week, we concluded the 11-campus Blackboard Ultra Road Show.  At each campus, we hosted a combination of in-person and online attendees.  It was great to see so many of you and to answer your questions in real-time.  I am thankful for the partnership between Instruction and IT on these Road Shows and on this upgrade in general.  I also want to acknowledge the work of the LMS Transition Committee led by Dr. Beth Knight and Dr. Erasmus Addae, our Instructional Designers, and the Faculty Ambassadors who are all making substantial contributions to this project through planning, developing training, and so much more.

    While we have already obtained feedback from many of you via the survey sent to attendees after each Road Show, I want to reiterate that this is a continually collaborative process. Please don’t hesitate to ask questions and share what you are ultra excited about. You can email [email protected] or check out the ACC Blackboard Ultra webpage at austincc.edu/blackboardultra

    As we mentioned during the Road Shows, faculty will start seeing Ultra Build Out sites in Blackboard this summer – in the next few weeks.  This is where faculty can start to play in Ultra, explore its many features, and consider how they might use those features to support their course learning outcomes and course design.  I will send another message at that time with more information about the Ultra Course Build Out sites.  These sites are for faculty to develop (convert or build) their Ultra courses, and there will be plenty of time for these conversions.  While we will not ‘flip the switch’ and use Blackboard Ultra until the summer of 2025, these sites will allow for well-paced, quality course conversion/construction over the next academic year.  [Note: These Build Out sites have a shelf life, and you will need to copy content from them into your live courses next summer and fall 2025.  There will be ample reminder messaging prior to these Ultra Build Out sites being purged.]

    On a related note, there is a workgroup just getting underway that will make some recommendations – via the shared governance process – for a baseline set of professional standards regarding the usage of the LMS.  This small but cross-sectional group includes: Cori Coburn, Tamy Chapman, Brian Bocknack, Christina Dittmar, Herb Coleman, Renee Kilbride, Stephanie Long, and Katie McClendon.  One of the first tasks this group will undertake is researching current LMS practices at community colleges within Texas and nationwide.

    Finally, stay tuned for another message from me in the coming weeks about the launch of our in-house asynchronous Bb Ultra training, which you can take this summer at your leisure ahead of the in-person/HyFlex training in partnership with instructional departments this coming academic year.

    I’m sure there will be lots of questions, so please refer to the Bb Ultra website and/or send your questions to [email protected].  Thank you all for your continued collaboration on this upgrade!

    Dr. Gaye Lynn Scott, Vice Chancellor of Instruction.

    Frequently Asked Questions

    When can the faculty start teaching with Ultra?

    Faculty will start seeing Ultra Build Out sites in Blackboard at the start of summer 2024.  These sites are for faculty to develop (convert or build) their Ultra courses and there will be plenty of time for these conversions.  While we will not ‘flip the switch’ and use Blackboard Ultra until the summer of 2025, these sites will allow for well-paced, quality course conversion/construction over the next academic year.  In sum, to keep the experience consistent for students, instruction will continue in the original version of Blackboard through the spring 2025 semester.  We will – as an institution – shift to using Blackboard Ultra as of summer 2025.

    Is there going to be a requirement to use Blackboard?

    Members of the LMS Transition Committee (comprised of faculty, staff, and instructional leadership) are currently considering what professional standards would best support student success as we transition to Blackboard Ultra.

    What is the workload involved in this transition?

    There are three main options for moving courses from the current version of Blackboard to Ultra: one is a more automatic option that converts materials quickly (on average, about 90 seconds), a second is to do a ‘granular’ copy of course elements from Learn into Ultra picking and choosing what is best to keep and what may need to be rebuilt, and a third is to rebuild entirely within Ultra.  The latter, while more time consuming, allows faculty to review their course design choices from the ground-up, leveraging best practices from the Quality Matters (QM) process. The existing complexity of the Learn course being converted will largely determine the workload involved with regard to the editing required post-conversion in Ultra.

    Will courses convert and files move over?

    Yes!  As mentioned above, courses and files contained within can convert via three main options. If faculty elect to use the automatic conversion process, they will get an ‘exception report’ that points them to aspects of the course that did not convert successfully and need to be addressed. The number of exceptions on this report will be relative to the compatibility of course elements pre-conversion. Note: Folders within the current version of Blackboard will likely convert to Ultra as modules.

    Will there be training?

    Yes! Training is currently being developed by our office of Distance Learning in collaboration with faculty. This training will be both face-to-face/HyFlex and asynchronous, largely starting with the fall 2024 semester. There will also be a website/InfoHub available with resources and reference materials.

    What tools will I be gaining? What tools will I be losing?

    Much of the functionality of the original version of Blackboard will exist and actually be enhanced in Ultra. There will also be new features to augment and facilitate teaching and learning. One notable exception would be Wikis, which have yet to be released as part of Ultra.

    How different will this be for our students?

    Students will benefit from the more modern user experience within Ultra, which is very mobile friendly.

    Will students need training on the new Ultra interface?

    No, as it is much more straightforward for students. Other institutions have found this to be a smooth part of the upgrade process. Note: We do have a communication campaign for students – closer to the upgrade date – as part of our Change Management plan.

    Will I get advanced access to a space for course building in Ultra?

    Yes! Ultra Build-Out Courses are scheduled to be available to all faculty by summer 2024 for each course they commonly teach (within the last year). These Build-Out courses are for faculty to use from summer 2024 through Go-Live. Courses developed within the current version of Blackboard can be converted into these Build-Outs or the Build-Outs can be where faculty completely rebuild their course (see #2 above). But the Build-Outs are not permanent! Once faculty teach each course associated with a Build-Out (i.e., copy the Build-Out to an upcoming, live shell), the Build-Out will be removed from our server to ensure we have enough storage for active courses.

    Will there be a size limit for courses?

    Yes. There will be an overall course quota limit of 1G (most courses fall under this threshold already), and a process for requesting a pedagogically-necessary exception. 

    More questions?

    Please reach out to us at [email protected]

    Have a question?

    Reach out to us

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    Meet the Team

    Who is working on this project?
    The Division of Instruction – faculty, staff, and administration 
    in specific collaboration with Distance Learning and support from IT. Specifically, there is a cross functional Transition Committee comprised of faculty and staff to support this upgrade by:

      • Giving feedback on overall project plans, timing considerations, and next steps
      • Providing input on upgrade options and features
      • Considering best practices to leverage leverage
      • Testing training
      • Communicating across departments and divisions

    LMS Transition Committee, Instructional Designers, and Faculty Ambassadors

    Erasmus Addae

    Associate Vice Chancellor, Distance Education

    Kayla Beltran

    Course Developer

    Charity Benford

    Coordinator, Institutional Effectiveness

    Brian Bocknack

    Faculty, Chemistry

    Lorlie Braxton

    Dean, Business

    Angelo Caverte

    Instructional Designer

    Tamy Chapman

    Coordinator, Distance Learning

    Cori Coburn

    Manager, Educational Technology Support

    Lisa Coppoletta

    Adjunct Faculty, Communication Studies

    Samantha Croft

    Professor, Biology

    Christina Dittmar

    Professor, Mathematics

    Kristina Elizondo

    Faculty, Art

    Michelle Escudier

    Instructional Designer

    David Fonken

    Dean, Science, Engineering & Math

    Eddie Garcia

    Adjunct, Professor

    Scott Gibby

    Professor

    Rosalee Godwin

    Specialist, Continuing Education Operations

    Dephine Gonzales

    Director, CE Business Operations & Contracts

    Karina Hernandez

    Associate Dean, Digital Fluency and Innovation

    Jonny Howard

    Faculty, Accounting

    Elizabeth Knight

    Associate Vice Chancellor, Academic Programs

    Shih-Ting Lee

    Manager, Faculty Evaluation

    Stephanie Long

    Professor

    Katie McClendon

    Instructional Designer

    Virgil McCullough

    Instructional Designer

    Marisa Mendoza

    Instructional Designer

    Marian Moore

    Instructional Designer

    Terry Patterson

    Sr. Analyst, IT Systems

    Mariela Prato-Williams

    Professor, Lib Arts: Humanities & Comm

    Thomas Samuel

    Faculty, Biology

    Gaye Lynn Scott

    Vice Chancellor of Instruction

    Mhoob Vang

    Analyst, IT Systems - Blackboard

    Becky Villarreal

    Instructional Associate

    Alex Watkins

    Faculty, Communication Studies

    Seth Wilkerson

    Sr. Manager, LMS Services

    Daira Wilson

    Faculty, Professional Nursing